It might surprise you that some of the world’s best athletes and corporate leaders don’t use goals.

Sure, they all have goals. Athletes want to win the next game and the championship. Executives want to hit specific business targets.

Yet, what drives the top 1% of the top 1% of athletes & leaders are not the short term objectives of achieving the next milestone. They are driven more by being the best or at least seeing how good can their best be.

We can call it a North Star. North Stars are not tangible achievements, yet it provides a purposeful direction and aim for us to strive for. What makes a North Star powerful is it pulls us towards an unreachable target that is baked in purpose, which pushes us to be our best.

While most have goals – and goals are good to have for short term bursts – it’s vital for long-term success to move beyond those immediate goals and create a North Star to continue pulling us forward.

Move Beyond: A Specific Goal towards an Ambiguous State

Goals are specific. We’re taught SMART goals – which are both specific and measurable. You might have a goal of earning $1 million this year. Maybe it’s $10 million this year. Either way, both are specific.

Move beyond the specific and ask what the purpose of earning that money is for you. Is it being the best business leader, creating freedom for yourself & others, providing experiences for your family? Finding the abstract thought drives the goal and provides deeper meaning, that when you say it, it motivates you to push forward.

Move Beyond: Written Goals towards Written Affirmations

Instead of focusing on – as example, a number on a scale – focus on what that number represents for you.

Diet researchers find that diets don’t work in the long run because motivation to stick to it wanes over time. Even if people hit the goal. The psychology of goal achievement says that once you achieve something, that pursuit is over.

An affirmation takes the form of an identity. “I am….” statements become a powerful driver. How different might a weight goal become if instead you embodied someone that believes “I am healthy” and “I have lean muscle” and “my body is working for me.” That person would make healthy food choices more automatically and possibly hit an even lower number on a scale than they originally thought possible.

Move Beyond: Measurable Goals toward Infinite States

Many leaders have hiring targets for a month, quarter, year. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a target. Yet, I’ll argue that targets are largely arbitrary and not always motivating.

In fact, I’ve worked with very successful leaders that have set and met many hiring targets over a number of years. They grew a business for the sake of growing a business – hitting a next bigger target. The success became hollow and even daunting because the business numbers didn’t mean anything more than a bullseye to hit.

What they missed is something more infinite than a target. Many of those leaders really desired some combination of freedom and impact. Instead of hiring 2 people, 5 people, 10 people every month (whatever your target is…), create the biggest possible impact on people each month. The world begins to look less like numbers your perspective shifts to scale.

This is not a call to ditch your goals. This is a call to move beyond the finite and move toward infinity. The bigger, wider, freer and more purposeful you can think, the stronger business and fulfillment you get to enjoy.